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When it started in 2020, AK Health and Social Services had just one employee and a shoestring budget.
Now, heading into 2023, the organization — which serves immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and people of color in the Lewiston and Portland areas — has over a dozen workers and a budget that allows it to run programs in public health, community support services, civic engagement and workforce development.
Going forward, Abdikhadar Shire, the group’s founder and co-executive director, said he is eager to continue building and deepening those initiatives.
“I don’t feel satisfied … I want to continue to do more,” Shire said.
Shire, who grew up in a refugee camp after his family fled Somalia before moving to Canada for a degree in social sciences and then to Maine to pursue additional degrees in public administration and business administration, acknowledged that the organization he founded has developed rapidly over the past couple years. The group has expanded from the Lewiston area into Cumberland County and will potentially soon move into Kennebec County as well.
“We’ve seen exceptional growth, and we have made a lot of impact on the community,” Shire said.
Public health work
AK Health and Social Services has put a particular emphasis on public health initiatives to help immigrants and people of color access medical care.
One part of that program is creating messaging in a variety of different languages during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Shire said. He said the group has put out materials in English, Somali, Arabic, French, Portuguese and Bangala along with information on various social media sites.
Candace Johnson, co-executive director of AK Health and Social Services, said the group has also held a series of vaccine clinics. Johnson said the organization has hosted five community vaccination events, resulting in hundreds of immunizations against COVID-19 and the flu. Just recently, Johnson said the group put together an event where 145 people were vaccinated.
Those clinics will continue, said Johnson, a recent graduate of Bates College who started as a volunteer for AK Health and Social Services.
“We still have to provide these vaccines and make sure everyone is vaccinated. Every time we hold them, we always are surprised” by the number of people who show up, she said.
Johnson said it’s important to hold clinics where immigrants and communities of color can access vaccines. In the early days of the pandemic, Maine had one of the worst racial disparities in the country for COVID-19 cases, prompting concerns over whether the state’s health care apparatus was able to reach such communities.
Johnson added that given misinformation that has circulated around the safety of vaccines, every clinic the group runs has health care providers who can explain the efficacy of immunization and translators to communicate that message if needed. In addition, in an effort to combat vaccine hesitancy, AK Health and Social Services has gone door-to-door in immigrant communities to encourage immunization.
“All the negative stuff they hear, we’re there to debunk it and help them with those vaccines,” Johnson said.
Along with vaccinations, under its public health program, AK Health and Social Services also provides support for people who test positive for COVID-19. Shire said that includes assistance getting food and medical supplies, providing people with tests for the virus, and supporting those who need to isolate because of the illness.
Shire said the group in August received a two-year contract from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to continue its public health work and will also be creating a new program around community support services. Under that initiative, the organization plans to deploy health workers into marginalized communities to do home visits and identify what families need.
“And from there, they are going to start connecting the community to resources and services,” Shire said.
Other programs center around civic engagement, workforce development
AK Health and Social Services also organized events prior to the 2022 election to encourage civic engagement in the community. That program was assisted by around 16 student volunteers from Bates College, Shire said.
The effort centered around providing voter education and support, including translation help at polling places, along with registration drives.
In addition, Shire said the organization brought around a dozen officials and political candidates into the community to discuss issues and hear from immigrants and people of color. Gov. Janet Mills, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, candidates for district attorney and legislative candidates such as Democratic state Rep. Mana Abdi of Lewiston — who in 2022 became one of the first Somali-Americans elected to the Maine Legislature — all participated in such events.
Shire said the organization also invited Republicans to the forums, but those candidates didn’t accept the offer.
Johnson said events with elected officials and candidates are important because they demonstrate that the community AK Health and Social Services works with has power in Maine politics.
“If [candidates] want our community members’ votes, they have to reach out to us… and we’re trying to be the resource to develop that relationship,” she said.
Ultimately, Shire said those voter engagement and registration efforts were quite successful, bringing hundreds of community members out to a mosque in Lewiston in an effort to increase civic engagement leading into the 2022 midterms.
“We made a change,” he said. “A huge one.”
Another area AK Health and Social Services has focused on is workforce development. Like much of the country, Maine is facing a labor shortage, and some have argued immigrants could be crucial to helping address that issue. However, one challenge is that under federal law, asylum-seekers can’t obtain work authorization until 180 days after their application was submitted.
Still, Shire said AK Health and Social Services does its best to connect immigrants to employment by helping them with the job search process. In addition, Shire said the group works with immigrant-led small businesses to assist them in diversifying their customer base beyond just members of the immigrant community.
The organization has been supported in this work and its other initiatives by a larger coalition of groups called the AK Collaborative. That coalition is made up of AK Health and Social Services, Her Safety Net (which advocates for women and girls in the immigrant community who are survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault), LA Family Support Services, and the Masjid Salaam Mosque in Lewiston.
Amina Hassan, the executive director of Her Safety Net and co-founder of the AK Collaborative, said the coalition was created to help the various groups working with immigrants and people of color in Maine better serve those communities.
“We realized we don’t have all the capacity to do [everything] ourselves,” she said. “For example, when someone comes in for one service, they also have two or three other needs and one organization cannot cover all those needs. We decided to create this circle where we invite other organizations into the collaborative who do other services.”
Moving forward
Looking ahead, Shire said AK Health and Social Services is hoping to deepen and grow its existing programs. However, the organization is also looking to expand to Kennebec County in 2023 and has just added a new initiative under its public health umbrella that will support youth community sports participation to help people stay active over the winter.
Reflecting on the work from the past year and the opportunities that 2023 will present, Shire said the importance of having a group like AK Health and Social Services in Maine is that it can serve as a bridge for community members who are still getting used to life in the U.S.
“People like myself who have spent time in a refugee camp or have been oppressed, when they came to the U.S, they came with hopes that they’re going to come to a land of opportunity where life is going to be easy,” he said. “But that’s not true, so especially with our community support services, we’re trying to ease those challenges.”
Johnson added that hiring staff who, in many cases, come from similar backgrounds as those they are serving has helped the organization foster trust with those in the community.
“So there’s that comfort when coming to us for help,” she said.
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